The Apple Tart of Hope by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald Read Free Book Online Page A

entire history, not since it was founded, which was in 1968.
    â€œShe’s
giving
herself to you on a plate. What’s going on inside your little head, buddy?” asked Greg, and he caught me in one of those headlocks he and Andy always loved to do.
    Paloma discovered our windows, the way Meg and I had, and it wasn’t long before we started chatting. It felt weird, but Paloma was nice in her own way, and it was good to see someone in that window. Plus she hadn’t a clue how things in our school worked, so it was an opportunity to explain.
    â€œI’m sorry if I embarrassed you in front of your friends,” she said, and I said it was okay.
    â€œEverything is so different here from what I’m used to. It’s taking me a while to adjust,” she explained. “Where I came from before, we had school dances and boys took girls to them.”
    â€œOh right, I see,” I said, and I told her she didn’t have to be sorry and it was perfectly understandable that she’d assume that it was the same here.
    â€œI have a question for you, Oscar,” she said, and she leaned out ofMeg’s window and she twisted her hair around her long fingers and she opened and closed her eyes slowly and I said, “Okay, well, shoot.”
    â€œI’m curious. I mean, I’m wondering—if boys
did
take girls to The Energizer, I mean—if that
was
the way it worked, you know, I wonder
then
would you be interested in taking me?’
    I saw straightaway what she was getting at. She stroked her arm and tilted her head to one side, and looked at me with her liquid shiny eyes. And she did look fairly lovely all right.
    I thought then that Paloma Killealy was definitely interested in me, which was a good feeling, especially considering how much almost every boy in my class had been talking about her since she arrived. At school, people sighed when she passed by and they smelled the air that she’d walked through, and Andy and Greg had become more or less obsessed with thinking about her. They never stopped asking me questions about what it was like to be her next-door neighbor.
    It could have been most flattering thing that had ever happened to me. But just because a gorgeous girl is interested in you, it doesn’t mean you should change your plans.
    â€œPaloma, it’s really nice of you to ask me a question like that. I really appreciate it.” But then I said that I was about to tell her something that I’d never told anyone and I got her to promise to keep it to herself. She said of course she promised, and her face was as serious and trustworthy as you can imagine a face would be.
    â€œYou see, there’s this girl. Her name’s Meg. She used to live in the room you’re in now and when you move out she’ll be back, and you see most of the time, she’s all I think about. I think about what she’s doing. I wonder what she’s thinking. If people took other people to The Energizer, Meg is the one I’d like to take. I hope you know what I mean; I hope you understand.”
    â€œOh right,” she said, and then she repeated what I had said asif it was a difficult thing to understand: “Meg’s the name of the girl you’re interested in.”
    And I said, “Yes, that’s exactly it.”
    â€œSo wait,” she said, “what you’re actually saying is that
you’re
not interested in
me
?”
    â€œNo,” I said because I believe people always deserve to be told the truth, “not in that way, Paloma. But I can tell you, in case you didn’t already know, that apart from me, every boy in the class is really, really interested in you, so you still have a lot of choice if you ever want to—”
    â€œYou’re
not interested in
me
?” she interrupted, saying that same thing a couple more times in exactly the same tone of voice.
    After that conversation, Paloma quickly got back to being